THESE ARE indeed boom years for the field. During his tenure as head of the state crime lab (“Two years, 10 months, and seven days”), Selavka’s staff has increased from 42 employees to about 70. He has also found himself with an array of dazzling new technologies at his disposal.

But forensic science’s rise to pre-eminence hasn’t been without cost. In fact, in some sense the field has simply gotten too good for its own good. Selavka’s greatest joy and his biggest pain in the ass, for instance, is DNA technology. Not that you’ll get him to say anything bad about DNA. He loves the stuff, wallows in it. DNA is, for Selavka and others like him, the golden child of forensic science.

Normally, the bespectacled, 40-year-old lab boss is the epitome of scientific circumspection. He speaks quietly, cautiously, often backing up to make sure he has chosen precisely the right word. When speaking of DNA, though, he bubbles a bit, as if he were talking about the kung fu grip of his G.I. Joe, or the tassels on the handlebars of his new bike. “If I gave you something to drink right now,” he says, leaning across the table, “I could pick the container up and get your profile with significant ease. When we shook hands, you and I transferred DNA, 10 times the amount we need to profile you, to do an essentially unique identification!”

It’s not just the increasing sensitivity of DNA testing that has gotten Selavka hot under the pocket protector. Massachusetts and other states are in the process of establishing a DNA database, the implications of which are huge. Until now, a DNA profile could be used only to confirm allegations against a named suspect. The database will make DNA an investigative tool, allowing authorities to search nationwide for as-yet-unidentified perps. According to Selavka, his lab will be connected to the interstate network “any day now.”

But there is another side to all this. In 1998, for instance, the ACLU challenged a Massachusetts law making it mandatory for convicted felons to provide samples (eight drops of blood) for DNA profiling. The law, the ACLU contended, violated prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures. In August of that year, the Massachusetts Superior Court ordered the state to halt mandatory DNA sampling, only to have its decision overturned by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in the spring of 1999. Shortly afterward, the state set about gathering DNA samples from prisoners, parolees, and probationers.

Legal challenges are not the only stumbling block that Selavka and his colleagues have encountered as they march bravely into the future of law enforcement. The crime lab’s DNA division has been inundated with requests from prosecutors working on current cases, investigators eager to wrap up cold cases, and defenders wanting to absolve previously convicted clients. As a result, the lab has found itself with a massive and ever-growing backlog of DNA-based cases on its hands. It’s not just Massachusetts; nationwide, crime labs are struggling with a similar explosion in demand, and the resulting backlogs.

“We’re victims of our own success,” says Charles McDonald of the Executive Office of Public Safety. “We have district attorneys, we have defense lawyers, police departments, prosecutors, all of whom are aware of the incredible advances that have been made in DNA technology. The demand is greater than the resources currently available.”

The issue is further complicated by the fact that any significant increase in resources for the forensic field would create a domino effect, effectively swamping the judicial system. “Even if the crime lab’s cold-case potential were increased to astronomical numbers,” explains Selavka, “we’d still need more prosecutors. We’d need courts, grand juries. There are various pieces of the pipeline.” Right now, Selavka is telling district attorneys to pick the most important cases. He is, in effect, rationing DNA screening.

“There’s no getting around the fact that there are some investigations that have suffered from the capacity shortcomings of our current system,” he says. “We’re trying to resolve that as quickly as we can with the resources that we have.”